UK search market will grow 24% in 2008

E-consultancy estimates that the total UK search market will grow 24% to £2.75bn this year.

That’s a healthy growth figure, considering the sector’s growing maturity and the economic constraints facing consumers and advertisers.

Paid search spending will rise 23% to £2.42bn (88% of the total market), while the SEO market will increase 32% to £330m.

However search marketers are not without challenges - notably Google’s continuing dominance, diminishing opportunities to increase ROI, and the increasing overlap between search and other areas of marketing.

Effects of economic woes

The search market is still be growing, but it is not immune to global economic trends. Agencies have reported a fall in search volumes for sectors badly affected by the credit crunch, such as the mortgage market. The volume of clicks and conversion has also dropped in other areas.

But there is an upside, as concern about budgets will lead to a greater emphasis on search marketing ROI. The emphasis will be on keywords and phrases with proven returns.

Challenges of changing client behaviour

The rollout of new search engine features and services create pressure for marketers to keep ahead of the game.

Google is now giving more prominence to video and other forms of media in its search results, so SEO agencies have had to respond to the challenge by optimising such content for clients.

Other new trends include mobile search marketing, which appears set to grow rapidly. Research found that 5% of companies said that they were using mobile search as a marketing channel and a further 24% said they were planning to.

Social media is another area where new opportunities have been created for SEO, if companies can succeed in creating engaging content.

Ongoing concerns about Google dominance

Despite the efforts of its rivals, Google in the UK continues to eat up the vast majority of advertisers’ search budgets. The research by E-consultancy and Guava found that 86% of search advertisers were buying paid search ads on Google.

This year has demonstrated marketers’ reliance on Google in a number of ways, and there is little sign of those concerns lessening.